ryan budget approach but saves the program in a fiscally responsible way. now, that's the first thing we should agree on. both sides have to come together and be prepared to give. the second thing is it takes both sides. what speaker boehner proved to us last week is if you try to do so-called plan b in the republican caucus, no hope. but if you take a measure to the floor of the house and invite democratic and republican support for it, you can pass it. i believe you can, as we can in the senate. that's what needs to be done. we need to have some grassroots efforts in the house and the senate of senators from both sides of the aisle who are preparing to work on a bipartisan basis to solve this problem. to say we should have done this long ago is to overlook the obvious. until november 6, we didn't know who the president would be for this new -- new administration. and now we do. it would have been a much different debate, a different outcome if the american voters had not chosen president obama to be reelected. so we had to wait until november 6 honestly b